Places other than Schaumburg exist?

Wow! Places other than Schaumburg, IL exist.

I think you'd almost have to have lived there to understand :-)

| 18 Oct 2006 | #

Looking out my backdoor

Just got back from Illinois, left the front door open, oh boy...

We're home. And safe.

Update: So our trip home was.... interesting.

We arrived at O'Hare at about 10am and checked in with the Qantas partner in that part of the world, just some "American airline". Check-in amazingly took over an hour as the lady booked our seats, unbooked them, printed boarding passes, ripped them up, and started over again several times. The worst part of this was for the 3 flights OHA->LAX, LAX->MEL and MEL->ADL she split up the seats so the four members of our family weren't sitting together.

Not a huge problem until you realise we have 2 children under 4 years of age.

So getting through security went ok, and saying goodbye to Heather who had met us at the gate, we boarded the aircraft for our 1pm flight. S convinced a gentleman to give up his seat so the 4 of us could sit together, which was very nice of him.

Flight went well, with the kids did very well on flight #1. Arriving in Los Angeles meant we had an 8 hour stopover, since the booking system I had to use wouldn't let me choose more sensible flights. If you haven't been there, the international terminal at LAX, the Tom Bradley, has got to be one of the most boring terminals on the planet. No place for a family of 4 to spent 8 hours waiting for a flight.

We went to see the Qantas counter about the poor seat choices and they were wonderful. Honestly, given a choice I'll never fly international with anyone else. They fixed our seat allocations for the next 2 flights and apologised for their partner carrier's ineptness. Thanks Qantas.

Finally boarding QF094 bound for Melbourne, we had a long 15.5 hour flight ahead of us. With 2 small kids that's a long flight. The 747-400 had a small mechanical problem with 1 of the 16 wheel brakes reporting a fault, meaning we had to detour for repairs. This was because Melbourne airport is undergoing improvements to handle the new A380 aircraft joining the fleet soon. But this meant the remaining runway wasn't long enough for us to land on with one brake out of action.

So landing in Sydney was our fate. Unfortunately Qantas left us in the aircraft for about an hour while the brake was replaced. Normally not a problem, but quite tiring after being in the air for 14 or so hours already. Especially with no refreshmeants left. The air hostess was very kind in lending us her mobile phone so we could inform friends and family waiting for us at the airport that there would be a delay in our arrival.

Leaving Sydney we soon resumed our trek and arrived in Melbourne, albeit thoroughly sick of airports and planes by this stage. Local Qantas staff there were unhelpful with luggage, causing a slight ruckass with our heavy suitcases that had been accepted at O'Hare. The detour to Sydney meant we missed our connecting flight, and the need to go through security and check luggage again meant we missed a few more flight opportunities. Finally we boarded our last flight, arriving in Adelaide 2.5 hours later than expected. Glad to be home.

| 08 Apr 2005 | #

Warming Up

Chicago is fighting its way to enter spring. The last 2 days have felt more than warm - I even turned on the air conditioning in the car - even though the mercury reached only 77F (25C). It's almost overwhelming seeing blue skies again, and watching the grass green up overnight. Strip malls (shopping centres) are now selling selling shorts and bikinis, and the mood of people you meet has climbed following the temperature trend - the weather really does affect people's moods. But the warm spell was only brief - last night a fierce storm arrived, prompting another tornado warning, and plunging temperatures again today to around 40F (4C). Running to the car last night in the storm saw me drenched through to the bone as strong rain pummelled Schaumburg.

Unfortunately we'll see precious few moments of spring 2005 here - we're heading home on Monday morning. It will mean 3 winters in a row - although suggesting that Adelaide has winters is nonsense once you've experienced the same here in Illinois. Our belongings have been all packed up by the movers, and our suitcases are standing by for the trip home. S has had multiple farewell events with her new girlfriends, and I've been out to lunch with work colleagues several times. Right now we're in the calm before the storm - the 3 flights that will take us home.

| 01 Apr 2005 | #

A few of my favourite things...

Building upon the list of things that S made - here's my list:

Things that I'll miss in Chicago

Chicago, Our new friends, Navy Pier, Krispy Kreme, Great Grains Crunchy Pecans breakfast cereal, StarBucks, Barnes and Noble bookstores, Borders bookstores, Harvest Bible Chapel, Best Buy stores, Circuit City stores, Comp USA stores, snow, WMBI, Chevy's mexican restaurant, Olive Garden restaurant, The Mag Mile, self-serve and payment counters at grocery stores, Woodfield Mall, Apple stores, Uno's deep-dish Chicago pizza, Millenium Park, Chicago highways, The gym at work, Free Amazon shipping, Friday night eating out, No house maintenance jobs, Column-shift cars, Cheap petrol, The NBA, Major League Baseball, The NFL, The absence of revenue-raisers speed cameras on every road, polite staff at restaurants and stores, Old Navy.

Things I'm looking forward to in Adelaide

Adelaide, Friends and Family, No tolls or potholes on the roads, Driving on the correct side of the road, OBC, Cadbury chocolate, Haighs chocolate, Adelaide Central Market, Farmers Union Iced Coffee, LinuxSA, Froggy Cakes, Talking to people who say car-a-mel, not car-mel :-), Only having 6 channels of TV to choose from, Enclosed shopping centres, A sane affordable medical system, 50F (10C) minimum daytime temperatures in winter, No need to scrape ice from the car windscreen in the morning, Indian restaurants, Australian wood-oven pizza, No tipping, Adelaide Zoo, Kangaroos, Koalas, and Emus, Babysitters :-), Plastic money, Aussie Rules Football, The Redlegs, living in a city of only 1 million people.

| 17 Mar 2005 | #

Fort Wayne, Indiana

On the weekend we drove down to Fort Wayne, Indiana for a concert in their coliseum (sick). A great night out - well worth the effort to drive down. Guy, David, Bill and Marshall were fantastic, and a couple of the supporting acts were pretty exciting too.

We had to drive through Gary, Indiana which has to be one of the most industrialised regions I have ever seen. Steel mills, factories, railroads, smoke, pollution, and despair all were visible from the highway. This is not a place to go on holiday.

Passing through the industrialised area soon saw us in farm country which reminded me a little of interstate driving in Australia. One difference was the driving snow on the way over made things difficult, but on the way back we saw blue skies for the first time in months. That persisted all the way back home, but a return to grey clouds awaited us this morning. Temperature hasn't moved, being high-20's, low 30's (Fahreinheit that is).

| 15 Mar 2005 | #